New Years Eve 2015

I planned on posting something everyday in December. But as often happens, I got sick. And then I got better! And then I got sick again. A few more times around that cycle and I'm mostly better now.  The last few weeks haven't been boring though. I've been on medical leave from work, so most of my days have been waking up late in the morning, doing something fun during the day with Greg, taking a long nap in the afternoon, supper and a movie, and then an early bedtime. I'm averaging eleven to thirteen hours of sleep out of every day.

We ate lots of good, if not terribly healthy, food. Spent time with our families...

Played with Greg's dad's new kitties

Made home-brew beer

More cookies

Tomorrow we start our Whole 30 challenge, and I'll be trying to post everyday again.  

All I Want For Christmas - In Minor Key

My Favourite Christmas Commercial

I think it's the comparative simplicity that makes me like it so much. It's one person whistling, like they don't have anyone to celebrate with, but they're still happy.

And the behind the scenes video

Jólakötturinn

I am tired and have nothing funny or interesting to post. Here's a link to a evil christmas kitty.

Starbucks Cups Drawings

I not a huge fan of Starbucks. I usually prefer local coffee houses, especially when they have extensive sugar-free options. Sugar sometimes gives me terrible migraines.  But there IS something very alluring about their red holiday cups, something that says to me, "Christmas is here!"

In keeping with our hobby of drawing on our daily coffee cups, we drew on our Starbucks cups.

                               

 Greg drew me some flying santa kitties, um... pooping snowflakes

I drew him a Krampus eating the logo

Desperate Passage

Last year I was having dinner with a few friends and one of them made a Donnor Party joke. "Table for three, we were ten but we got hungry waiting." The other friend had never heard of the Donnor Party. I used that as an excuse to look it up on Wikipedia, and an hour later finished reading the entire page. It's a very engrossing article, almost heartbreaking. I had a very clear picture of the families and their troubles crossing the mountains. I had to read more, so I bought the Kindle version of Desperate Passage. The Donnors were trapped in the snow over Christmas in 1846.  It's an oddly "christmassy" story.  Families spent more time together than they wanted to.  There was a lot of snow and fir trees.  A few even had tiny Christmas feasts (of beef and vegetables, not other things.) I read it again this year, and as horrible as it sounds, I enjoyed it just as much. Something about reading how other people suffered through the winter, in roughly the same part of the country, helps me to better appreciate the plentiful food, and colorful lights we have today.

Devil's Food Cake

We made this for our friend's birthday the other day, but it was gone before I could think to take pictures of it. Greg is a devout follower of Mr. Alton Brown, he's also great at... adding embellishments. The original recipe is at the Food Network website.  Enjoy!

Devil's Food Cake

Cake:

Nonstick spray
1 cup boiling water
4oz (1/2 cup) Dutch-process cocoa (black as me mum's evil heart)
   -hershey's special dark works
10 1/2oz (1.5 cups) dark brown sugar
5 1/2oz (2/3 cup) all-purpose flour
4oz (1/2 cup) cake flour, it's not a lie
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt (if thy flakes are large, crush them until they'd fit in an orphan's eyes)
1 cup vegetable oil
4 1/2oz (just over 1/2 cup) sour cream, at room temperature
2 large whole eggs, at room temperature
2 large egg yolks, at room temperature

Chocolate Frosting:(page 2)

5 1/2oz (2/3 cup) unsalted butter, room temperature
1oz (2 TBSP) mayonnaise
3oz (just over 1/3 cup) semi-sweet chocolate, melted and cooled slightly
8oz (1 cup) powdered sugar
Pinch kosher salt (again, crush if needed)

Cake:

Set thy oven to 350 and prepare a pan of thy choosing with cooking spray.
Dr. Brown suggests 13x9 inches and coating with parchment paper after spraying. 2 round stackables also work.
Boil water until approximately hot enough to melt witches, then whisk into thy cocoa powder in a small bowl.
Combine thy sugars and flours and baking sodas and ferrets and salts into the bowl of thy mixer and beat that mutha with the paddle attachment as thou wouldst thy grandfather for assaulting thy cat.

In a large pourable container, whisk thy eggs and egg yolks, sour cream and oil. Add to thy cocoa water mix and whisk slowly until combined. Set thy mixer to low and slowly add the liquid mixture to the dry over about 30 seconds. Mix on low for another 30 seconds. Scrape down the sides of the bowl as if thou were scraping the grit from thy mothers back. Continue to beat on low (10-15 seconds or) until the batter is smooth, like thy mother's back after scraping. Pour thy batter into thy pan and bake 30-35 minutes or until 205 inside or springy, like a baby's head before the bones harden. Cool completely before frosting. Or don't if thou wish thy frosting to melt
and form a hard shell when it dries.

Frosting:

Beat the butter and mayo in thy mixer as though thou wert beating an urchin for soiling thy coat with their filthy little fingers(on high), until light and fluffy (3 - 4 mins)

Put thy mixer on slow and slowly add the melted chocolate. Continue mixing until well mixed, scraping sides as needed.

Turn off thy mixer and add 1/3 of the sugar. Mix on low to combine. Repeat until all of the sugar is mixed.
Add salt and beat until smooth and lighter in color (2 - 3 minutes), use immediately.

Bender On A Rampage

Every christmas the last three years I've used my Bender toy to make christmas pictures. I love 'em.

 Stealing presents (2013)

 Menacing a gingerbread family (2014)

Glaring at the unflinching gingerbread family (2014)

Cuddling with his booze buddy (2015)

Checking out what's in the other stocking (2015)

Losing his hold on the booze (2015)

"Crap" (2015)

Sneaky Shopping

We went to Target to fill our christmas stockings. We each had twenty dollars total to spend. We walked around the store together, taking pictures with our phones of things we wanted in our stockings. Then we split off and filled our separate baskets. Taking care not to be spotted by each other.

Peeking around a corner.

Peeking around another corner.

I saw him get in line next to me, (I didn't peak at his basket.)

Stuffed stockings!

We had a TON of fun with this. Sneaking around the store. And we got a lot for only twenty dollars. We'll definitely be doing it again next year.

Fattigman Cookies

Tonight we went over to Greg's mom's house and made Fattigman cookies. "Fattigman" apparently means "Poor man" in Norwegian. Their family recipe is Top Secret, so here's a close approximation. And you'll need a special Fattigman cutter, like this one.

Cutting out the cookies.

Folded cookies waiting to be fried.

Greg's sister frying the cookies. No one else was trusted not to burn them. 

(Although Greg likes them a little burnt)

Fried Fattigman.

A few of them with powdered sugar.

Christmas Feet

I'm not sure when it started, but at some point I started associating christmas with painting my toenails. Every year I buy a few "christmasy" colors and wait until december to try them out. 

I'm sure everyone desperately wants to see my finished toes, so here they are

The color came out very blood-like, so I added glitter. Now they still look bloody, but cheerfully so.

We also have christmas socks. One set for Greg,

And one for me...

Enjoying himself

Eating a Snowbaby

I'm excited to wear these to Greg's family's house on the 25th. We'll see if anybody notices.

House Decorating

Tonight we watched Love Actually, decorated the house, and had cookies and cream milkshakes.

 Mistletoe above the bedroom door. 

 Our D&D minis.

Our tiny christmas tree

Rudolph hanging out on the lampshade (it's a led light bulb, no heat or fire risk)

Our sparse bulletin board

Rare Exports

 Tonight we watched Rare Exports (2010) 

A very entertaining, and disconcerting, "Christmas Horror" film.

It's based on the short films by Jalmari Helander, Rare Exports(2003) 

and 

Rare Exports: The Official Safety Instructions (2005) 

Both links take you the videos on Vimeo

It took a bit of digging to find any of the source material for the legend. It isn't mentioned on the  Rare Exports wiki page, although the Joulupukki page does mention the movie. The two pages with the most information are the Joulupukki and Yule Goat pages. Both of which made me think of Krampus, who has his own movie coming out on Friday. We'll probably have to wait till next Tuesday (economy ticket day) to see it, but I'm excited.

Gingerbread House

It's the last night before "Christmas" Starts

I love Christmas. Almost everything about it. The food, the traditions, the lights, decorations, giving and receiving presents. I like to stretch it out as long as possible, and I'm trying to keep the habit of blogging every day, so this year I'm filling the 24 days leading up to Christmas with fun stuff for Greg and me to do. Movies, treats, projects, all kinds of stuff. I'm super excited. I have the song from the Muppet Christmas Carol stuck in my head, "It's Only One More Sleep Til Christmas."

Dangit, Someone Else Already Thought Of That

Last night I dreamed that Greg and I were at the DOL getting our marriage license. When we got called up to the counter the woman said she wanted to talk to Greg alone. We were both freaked out by this and said "Um... no." So she gave in and talked to both of us. She said she wanted to see if she could interest him in "Marriage Insurance" to help pay for a divorce if he ever needed one. He was upset because "We're never getting a divorce!" I agreed and was also pissed because "This is clearly a scam. Who would ever get a divorce! You're just trying to scam money out of him!"

When I woke up I told Greg about my dream. After completely agreeing with DreamGreg, RealGreg added, "That HAS to be a thing, marriage insurance..." and looked it up. It's real folks, but it's called Divorce Insurance. I'm kinda disappointed actually, I thought I might have come up with a great new money making idea.

That's Not Fog Folks

On the drive home tonight our city is covered in a blanket of smog. A burn ban is in effect in our county "Unless it is your only source of heat."

Local news station says "Air pollution in those counties was at levels "unhealthy for sensitive groups" on Saturday." You think?

Thankfully the air's a little cleaner at our house thanks to the lower elevation. When the tsunami comes we'll regret it, but for now I'm glad we're so close to sea level.